Monthly Archives: March 2016

Syracuse is a surprise Final Four team after storming back to defeat Virginia in the Elite Eight. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America)

2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament Final Four Schedule

The 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament is nearing its end with just four teams left to this point. The tournament may be close to over, but some of the action will live on for many years (Northern Iowa’s win over Texas and collapse against Texas A&M are just two examples).

The three remaining games will all take place at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas with the National Semifinals on Saturday evening and the National Championship on Monday night. The final three games will all be on TBS, the first time the National Championship game will not be shown on CBS in 35 years. The National Championship will return to CBS in 2017 and alternate between the two channels through 2024.

The Villanova Wildcats and Oklahoma Sooners will play in the first game of the Final Four while the all-ACC battle between the Syracuse Orange and North Carolina Tar Heels will be the nightcap on Saturday evening.

The 2016 version of March Madness has been just that: Madness. Brackets were busted early and then completely blown up by the end of the first round. For as much fun as the 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament has been, there have been some bad parts of it as well. Below we will take a look at the good and bad from the first four days of the 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament

The Good

Upsets Galore – #15 Middle Tennessee defeated one of the National Title favorites and #2 seed Michigan State in the first round. Double digit seeds won left and right (#13 Hawaii over #4 Cal, #11 Wichita State over #6 Arizona, #12 Yale over #5 Baylor, #11 Northern Iowa over #6 Texas, #10 VCU over #7 Oregon State, #10 Syracuse over #7 Dayton, #11 Gonzaga over #6 Seton Hall, #12 Arkansas-Little Rock over #5 Purdue, and #14 Stephen F. Austin over #3 West Virginia). That all made for some great action, particularly on Friday.

The ACC – The Atlantic Coast Conference has put a record 6 teams through to the Sweet 16 (Miami (FL), North Carolina, Notre Dame, Duke, Syracuse, and Virginia). That is incredible to have 38% of the remaining field, but it also came down to some favorable matchups like Syracuse against Middle Tennessee. However, that is no fault of the ACC as their teams delivered.

“Mid-Majors” – This was a good tournament for the upsets (see above), but the “Mid-Majors” got plenty of support in close games and some great stories. Stephen F. Austin got 33 points from Thomas Walkup, who played incredibly against West Virginia and had a solid game against Notre Dame. Yale won their first ever Tournament game against Baylor. Hawaii defeated Cal. Northern Iowa captivated the nation not once, but twice against teams from the state of Texas. First it was Texas and this buzzer beater, but then it was their collapse against Texas A&M. Saint Joseph’s played a great second round game against top seeded Oregon. Finally, Middle Tennessee going toe-to-toe with Michigan State was easily the biggest story of the first round. Mid-Majors should not be discounted in the future when picking brackets.

The #1 Seeds – The top four seeds in the Tournament all looked good on the first weekend, but also faced some competition at times. Kansas took a big lead against UConn before that dwindled, but the Jayhawks fended off that challenge. North Carolina had a close first half against Florida Gulf Coast and Providence, but dominated the second half of those games to pull away. Virginia and Oregon had tough second round games against Butler and Saint Joseph’s, respectively. However, they were able to get through those games and move to the Sweet 16. The top seeds look mighty tough, but this is March Madness afterall and we have seen that anything is possible.

The Referees – The inconsistency of the officials calling the Tournament made it frustrating to watch at times. Between Duke and UNC-Wilmington, the referees called every soft foul imaginable while other games would let them play. Constant foul calling stems the flow of the game for TV viewers, but how frustrating must that be for a player on the floor? One thing that needs to be looked at is how much contact to allow. It does come down to each referee, but how can one game have a foul called 80 feet from the basket for putting a hand on a player’s hip and another not call a push off?

Game Management – You can call this the Northern Iowa Special. The Panthers blew a 12 point lead with 35 seconds left in the game and then lost in double overtime to Texas A&M. They are not the only team to make questionable calls though. Xavier was up three in the final 10 seconds, but opted not to foul the Badgers’ shooters. Wisconsin subsequently tied the game and then Bronson Koenig hit a three at the buzzer to end Xavier’s season. Purdue deserves mention as well for letting Little Rock comeback late in the game and losing in double OT. There was also near comebacks by Wichita State (trailed 27-6 to Miami) and Yale (down as much as 27 to Duke), but those two were not able to complete the miracle comebacks.

Seeding/Selection Committee – The NCAA Basketball Selection Committee did a bad job selecting teams last Sunday. It turns out they did a bad job of seeding the teams as well. Stephen F. Austin deserved better than a 14 seed as did Middle Tennessee at 15. And this was before the games were played. It is easy to pile on the Committee after the fact, but some of the seeding was questionable beforehand. In addition, the scheduling for Wichita State was brutal. The Shockers had a late game on Tuesday, late game on Thursday, and an early game on Saturday, which may have contributed to them starting as flat as they did.

Wisconsin versus Pittsburgh – This was about as ugly a game to watch in recent tournament memory. The Badgers won 47-43 after scoring only 16 points in the first half. The teams combined to go 35 of 101 from the field and 7 of 30 from beyond the arc. The 90 total points were the fewest since 2000 in the NCAA Tournament. The game was wretched, but Badger fans felt greatest about the result and were lifted in the second round too.

Let’s hope the final two weekends give us as much entertainment as the first weekend provided.

The 2016 NCAA Basketball Tournament has been pared down to 16 teams in the span of four days. The second weekend of the Tournament will cut that down to the Final Four teams that will meet in Houston, Texas.

Below is the schedule for the Sweet 16 broken down by region first and then each day. The games for each region will be listed in order of the pairings (i.e. #4 Indiana versus #1 North Carolina in the East Regional will be listed first, then then the other game in the bracket).

The English Premier League is starting to come to end, but how much drama will there be between the two presumptive title chasers of Leicester City and Tottenham? We will find out, but let’s take a closer look at their respective schedules.

First, let’s see how the table shapes up as of the games completed on Sunday, March 20, 2016:

Leicester City has a five point lead with seven games to play while Arsenal sits 11 points off lead in third with an extra game in hand. For the purposes of this article, we will only focus on Leicester City and Tottenham. Below are the schedules for each team.

Leicester and Tottenham have pretty similar schedules left as they share common opponents of Southampton, Manchester United, and Chelsea. They both have to face a relegation positioned team away from home with Leicester taking on Sunderland and Tottenham facing Newcastle. The average current position of the teams remaining for the Foxes is 11th while Tottenham is 10th.

It is also worth mentioning that the Premier League will be the only focus as Leicester City did not qualify for Europe last season and Tottenham was knocked out of the Europa League in the Round of 16. Neither team remains in the FA Cup with the Spurs defeating Leicester City in the Third Round and Crystal Palace knocking off Tottenham in the Fifth Round.

Leicester City’s magic point total is 83 points as of right now, which assumes Tottenham wins their final seven games to reach 82 points and a finish on 82 points would be of no help to the Foxes as they have an inferior goal differential. Will Tottenham win all of their remaining seven games? It is hard to say, but probably not given the Premier League’s way of giving us twists and turns. (The same goes for Leicester City as well).

All Leicester, or any team winning a league, has to do is win the games in front of them and not worry about what they cannot control (Tottenham’s results). If the Foxes take care of their business, they will be lifting the Premier League trophy and go down as one of the greatest stories in Football history.

Like this:

Makai Mason and the #12 seeded Yale Bulldogs upset the fifth seeded Baylor Bears in the First Round. Yale faces Duke in the Second Round on Saturday, March 19, 2016. (Jim Rogash/Getty Images North America)

What we do know are the matchups and game times for Saturday’s action. Each regional is broken down below while the schedule for each day (broken down by start time) is at the bottom. An updated bracket can be seen here via the NCAA’s website.

Wichita State had an excellent second half to pull away from Vanderbilt and move on to the First Round to face Arizona on Thursday. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images North America)

Big Second Half Lifts Wichita State Over Vanderbilt

Wichita State fended off Vanderbilt by outscoring them 20-2 to end the game and win 70-50. The top duo of Fred VanVleet and Rod Baker (plus 9 rebounds) both finished with 14 points as the joint-top scorers for Wichita State. Vanderbilt also had joint-top scorers in Joe Toye and Riley LaChance with 10 points each.

The first half was a back and forth affair with neither team able to get an upper hand. Vanderbilt led 30-25 inside the final two minutes, but four points from the free throw line by Baker helped the first half end in a 30-30 tie.

Wichita State started the second half the way the ended the first: on a run. They scored the first 11 points of the final 20 minutes to open a 41-30 lead with Baker and VanVleet scoring all of those points. Vandy was able to battle back to make it a 50-48 deficit with approximately 8 minutes left, but head coach Kevin Stallings was called for a technical foul. While the foul only led to one point, Wichita State was able to seize the momentum and end the game on a 20-2 run. The Commodores only points came via the charity stripe with less than three minutes left to play.

Vanderbilt’s season has come to a close with a 19-14 record. Their performance will leave some to question the Selection Committee’s decision to include them in the field as well. Vandy shot the ball terribly going 16 of 53 (30.2%) and just 3 of 19 from behind the arc (15.8%). They connected on 15 of 26 free throws (57.7%). Behind Toye’s and LaChance’s 10 points apiece, Luke Kornet nearly had a double-double with 8 points and 9 rebounds.

The Shockers have now won a tournament game each year since 2013. Wichita State (25-8) will now move on to face Arizona on Thursday at 9:20 PM Eastern Time in the South Regional First Round. The Shockers went 22 of 59 from the field (37.3%) and 7 of 19 from beyond the three point line (36.8%) including 7 of 12 in the second half. They shot 19 of 25 (76%) from the free throw line as well. Anton Grady finished as the #3 scorer for Wichita State on the night with 11 points and also had 7 rebounds.